Track Racing , Kevin Hetherington-Young, 8-15
I’m back from Germany and made it to the track tonight, dragging along our esteemed cat 3 team captain Scott Brooks and his sidekick, Dave Chiu, who fit nicely in my four year-old’s car seat on the drive up. :-P BTW, an evening racing at the track is a great way to get over jet-lag.
The track is much improved with properly painted sprint and stayer’s lines as well as start lines marked off for the various distance events.
Tonight was kilo night. The kilometer time trial was final event for the Granite State Games. For those who haven’t done the kilo, it’s oddly too long to sprint and too short to pace, or so it seems. It’s similar to running a 400 meter.
I had good equipment and was good to go. I ran a 53×15 with a rear disk, Mavic Cosmic Carbone (thanks Michele!) and aero bars. Turns out, I was the only one with aero bars. ;)
At our track, the kilo is three laps plus about 50 meters, so you end up starting in turn four for three+ laps. They were taking splits on the finish line and had a nice split for the first 50-ish meters. I hit it in 6.6 seconds, Scott had the second best at 6.9 I believe and then they came in around 7.2 and up, so I had a nice .5 second lead right at the start. I didn’t get any of my other splits but started feeling the burn with one lap to go and it really hit with half a lap. I was able to ride through it but faded a bit. The key is to keep is smooth over the top of the stroke and use as much of the stroke as possible. What’s a little burn for twenty seconds or so? :-) I finished with a time of 1:15.69, the new track record. As tracks go, this one’s pretty slow, but who cares?
Steve Gauthier finished second at 1:18.something while Ed Parsons camein third at 1:19.3 (I think), just barely edging out our esteemed NEBC rider Barry Greenberg. Perhaps next year we’ll have electronic timing. :-D
In the C’s Mike Bergstrom won, though I didn’t catch his time. Dave Chiu posted 1:21.6 to place 2nd in the B’s while Scott Brooks posted 1:22.05 for third. This was their first time on fixed gears.
Michele Smith won the women’s event with a time of 1:28 or so.
It took much of the evening to get through all the riders, but they were nice enough to let riders ride around the top of the track above the stayer’s line while people were racing.
After getting through the kilo, we only had enough time for one race per class (A,B,C) and did a scratch race. Mark Bowen finished third in the B race with Dave Chiu a half wheel behind in fourth. Not bad for his first mass-start track race. I think they got the bug.
In the ten lap A race, Steve Gauthier attacked only two laps in and I was able to work up to his wheel in about a lap. This was the beginning of a blistering pace most of the way to the finish. We exchanged pulls for a lap or so and the group grew to four. On an exchange back behind Barry, he and I had a miscommunication and Steve managed to gap the group. Barry figured he’d roast as long as we kept it close enough. Since the gap was there, I played this approach and it seemed sensible. However, Steve didn’t kill himself, riding just hard enough to maintain a 50 meter gap or so. With two to go, Steve upped the pace again and I went to the front to lead Barry out. We started closing the gap, but not as fast as I expected. In the last two turns, Barry started to come around me, but I wasn’t convinced it was fast enough to catch Steve so I kept my sprint up, which at this point was probably over 400 meters, including the leadout. Steve held on to win by half a wheel with me in second and Barry in third, about a foot behind me.
Steve won with a combination of good speed, ballsy tactics for such a long attack (at those speeds), and cagey tactics on how he played the pack behind and allocated his efforts. He certainly earned the win. According to Barry’s computer, we were sprinting about 34 mph, a bit slower than we’ve seen before, but the pace was quick for a full eight laps. It sure felt fast.
There are two more weeks of racing this season, so if you’ve considered getting out there, come on up and try it while you still can. I have yet to hear anyone sound disappointed with the experience. You might decide a track bike is a worthwhile Christmas present to yourself this winter. ;)
Next week will have more mass-start events and should be a blast.
On another note, there was a reporter and photographer there from the Boston Globe. He interviewed me and told me there would be an article in the Sunday Globe in the Northwest section this week. Hopefully they’ll have a nice picture with the team kit in full flight.
Kevin